Taking a deep, shuddering breath, John pressed his palm against the door. The cool wood was a flimsy barrier against the chaos inside, both hers and his own. The muffled sobs on the other side felt like hammer blows, each one a testament to the burden Anita carried, a weight born of a darkness he had only ever seen the edges of. He had built his admiration for her on the fierce, resilient woman she showed the world, but now, the truth of her fragility was a painful, raw thing. He could hear the cracks in her armor.
"Anita," he called softly, his voice a steady anchor. "I'm here. Please talk to me."
Silence followed, thick and heavy, absorbing his words without a trace. For a moment, his heart seized with the fear that she would remain lost to him behind that door. Then came a choked, desperate whisper. "Go away, John."
"No," he replied, his voice firm, leaving no room for argument. "I won't. I'm not leaving you to go through this alone."
Inside, she shifted on the bed, the rustle of fabric a faint, sad sound as she drew herself into a tighter ball. "You don't understand," she said, her voice thin and ragged. "You don't know what it's like."
"Then help me understand," he pleaded, desperation threading through his tone. "Let me in. I want to help you."
There was a long, excruciating pause. He could almost feel the battle raging within her, a war between the part of her that craved his comfort and the part that was terrified to let him see the wreckage. She was scared of what her pain might mean for their future, scared of what he would see if she let the mask fall completely. But John knew, with a certainty that chilled him, that if he didn't break through this wall, she would drown in her own despair.
"Please, Anita," he said, his voice dropping to a near-whisper. "I can't help you if you don't let me in."
The lock clicked, a small, fragile sound in the heavy air. The door creaked open just a few inches, and he saw a sliver of her face, blotchy and tear-stained. Her eyes, red and swollen, held the vast weight of her past.
"I don't want you to see me like this," she whispered, her voice barely audible.
"I want to see you," he countered, his heart aching with an intensity that surprised him. "All of you. The strong Anita I know, and the scared girl you're hiding from me. You don't have to be strong all the time."
With a shaky breath, she pulled the door wider. The room was dim, the curtains drawn tight against the outside world, and in the gloom, he could see the shadows that danced across her walls. He approached her slowly, as though approaching a wounded bird, ready to bolt at any moment.
"Can I sit?" he asked, gesturing to the edge of the bed.
She nodded, her eyes downcast. He settled beside her, leaving a small, respectful space between them. "I'm here," he said softly, and reached for her hand. Her fingers were ice-cold and trembling, and he wrapped his own around them, a steady warmth against her chill.
"I'm so tired, John," she confessed, the words a dam bursting. "Tired of fighting. Tired of feeling like I'm drowning in this darkness."
"I can't imagine how hard that must be," he said, squeezing her hand gently. "But you don't have to fight alone. I'm here, and we can find a way through this together."
Anita finally looked up at him, and her glistening eyes were filled with a desperate, wild uncertainty. "What if I can't? What if my father was right, and I'll only hurt you, too?"
"You won't," he promised, his voice unshakeable. "I won't let you. We'll figure this out. You're not your father's darkness, Anita. You're so much more than that."
A faint flicker of hope sparked in her gaze, quickly extinguished by the old, ingrained fear. "I don't know if I can believe that."
"Then let me believe it for you," he urged, his heart swelling with fierce determination. "Let me be your light when you can't find it yourself."
Her shoulders began to tremble as she leaned into him, the last of her walls crumbling. She sobbed, the sound raw and unrestrained, and John held her close. He felt the weight of her pain, the torrent of her grief, and he knew he would carry it for her, if only for a little while, to help her find her way back to the surface.
They sat together in the dim light. Two souls intertwined in a moment of fragile vulnerability, a flicker of hope beginning to stir.
Then, she pulled away. A new coldness entered her body, an emotional withdrawal far more frightening than the crying.
"I think we should break up."
The words were calm, hollow, devoid of the emotion that had just wracked her body. John's heart plummeted.
"Anita, what…?"
"Please, don't," she interrupted, her hands pulling away from his. She looked at him, her expression a mask of manufactured distance. "I can't do this to you."
"Do what? Love me?" he asked, bewildered.
The look in her eyes hardened, a calculated cruelty. "I loved you. And I still do. But that's the problem, isn't it? Every time I love someone, I break them. I'm just like him. You heard me. You heard what he said." The words came faster now, a rehearsed script. "I bring nothing but bad luck. And I'm freeing you before it's too late. Before I drag you into my darkness, too."And in that moment, the flicker of hope was snuffed out completely, leaving only the dim, suffocating shadows of the past.